Jameer Nelson

The workout was held in Atlanta, and it occurred last Wednesday. That's how Jameer Nelson remembers it, anyway. He could be wrong, seeing as he has made 14 visits to NBA teams over the last five weeks, stopping off to see at least one -- Phoenix -- twice. He figures he has flown some 15,000 miles, more than enough to leave his head spinning. There have been times when he has awakened in a pitch-black hotel room and wondered where he was. And there was a time when an airport security guard asked him where his flight had originated, and he had to think for a moment.

By Tim Povtak, The Sports Xchange ORLANDO, Fla. — When opportunity knocked Sunday night, third-year forward Tobias Harris was more than happy to answer the door. With veteran starting guards Arron Afflalo and Jameer Nelson sidelined due to injuries, Harris attacked from multiple angles, scoring a career-high 31 points to lead the Orlando Magic to a 92-81 victory over the hapless Philadelphia 76ers. Philadelphia lost its 14th consecutive game. "I knew with guys out, we all had to do a little more, so my mindset was just to attack, play my heart out and whatever happens, happens," Harris said.

Jameer Nelson's celebrity status extended well past the Saint Joseph's University campus before he even made his first collegiate basket last Nov. 17. He didn't even need to win the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year award or play on last summer's gold medal-winning USA Junior Championship team to be idolized by many people in his hometown in Chester. All the accolades help, of course, but Nelson became more popular than ever around Chester the day he signed a national letter of intent to attend Saint Joe's.

His first shot went through the nets kind of like cotton balls being dropped in a bucket. It was just that smooth. But shooting wasn't the only part of Saint Joseph's guard Jameer Nelson's game that was smooth. His ball-handling and drives to the basket were so dynamic that Nelson made it seem as if the Villanova players were trying to guard him wearing blindfolds. Nelson swished his first 3-pointer 26 seconds into play, and continued victimize the Wildcats with his speed and savvy play on both ends of the court in leading Saint Joe's to a 92-75 Big 5 victory that the Hawks, at one point in the first half, led by 31 points.

Jameer Nelson, the magnificent Saint Joseph's point guard, wants the ball in his hands and T.J. Ford of Texas in his face. He wants to prove in the NCAA Tournament that he can easily dribble through traps, as he has done all season, set up teammates with unbelievable passes, and prove that he is the best playmaker in college basketball. Better than Ford, Arizona's Jason Gardner, Pittsburgh's Brandin Knight, and Notre Dame's Chris Thomas. Cooler and sharper than Duke's Chris Duhon, Indiana's Tom Coverdale, Kansas' Kirk Hinrich, and Maryland's Steve Blake.

You can not stop a team that plays defense as well as it does offense. And you can not tell Saint Joseph's that it doesn't deserve to be the No. 3-ranked team in the country. Perfection says so. The Hawks' bid for a 27-0 regular season remained alive with an 81-67 Atlantic 10 Conference victory over Dayton Wednesday night before a revved up crowd of 3,200 packed into Alumni Fieldhouse like sardines in a tin can. The Hawks (21-0, 10-0 Atlantic 10), who snapped a three-game losing streak against Dayton (19-4, 9-1)

Heaven received a prayer from the Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs Tuesday night that may forever go unanswered. The prayer is that Saint Joseph's guard Jameer Nelson goes from his postseason sweep of all the major national player of the year awards to wearing a ValleyDawgs uniform in the upcoming United States Basketball League season. "We are trying to get to heaven," Dawgs coach Darryl Dawkins said after announcing during a USBL draft teleconference, from Larry Holmes' Ringside Restaurant in Easton, that the team had selected Nelson with its No.1 pick and 10th overall.

Wake Forest guard Chris Paul has shown little sign of rookie jitters in his first NCAA Tournament. The Demon Deacons' 6-0 freshman has averaged 25.5 points and 7.5 assists, better than expected numbers for even the Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Year. But now Paul will meet the nation's top point guard, Saint Joseph's senior Jameer Nelson, when Wake Forest and the Hawks play in a Sweet 16 matchup Thursday in East Rutherford, N.J. It will be a matchup of speed vs. speed, flash vs. flash, and one freshman trying to steal the headlines from the NBA-bound Nelson when No. 1-seeded Saint Joe's (29-1)

PHILADELPHIA - Arron Afflalo and Tobias Harris scored 16 points apiece Tuesday night, and the Orlando Magic snapped a five-game losing streak with a 98-84 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. Andrew Nicholson added 13 for the Magic (16-41), which had dropped 17 of its previous 18 and is just 4-28 since opening the season 12-13. Ex-Sixer Nikola Vucevic finished with 12 points and 19 rebounds. Orlando, which shot 53.9 percent from the floor, placed six players in double figures to win for just the seventh time in 28 road games this season.

PHILADELPHIA - Dwight Howard is irritating. He keeps saying he just wants to win. If that is his motivation, why did he insist he had to get out of Orlando? Let's review. First pick in 2004 NBA draft by a bad team. Management very quickly surrounded him with a team of quality three-point shooters and penetrators. By Howard's third season, the Magic were in the playoffs. They won 52 games and a playoff series in his fourth season. They were 36-11 midway through the 2008-09 season, clearly the best team in the league before All-Star point guard Jameer Nelson tore his labrum.

PHILADELPHIA - Arron Afflalo and Tobias Harris scored 16 points apiece Tuesday night, and the Orlando Magic snapped a five-game losing streak with a 98-84 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. Andrew Nicholson added 13 for the Magic (16-41), which had dropped 17 of its previous 18 and is just 4-28 since opening the season 12-13. Ex-Sixer Nikola Vucevic finished with 12 points and 19 rebounds. Orlando, which shot 53.9 percent from the floor, placed six players in double figures to win for just the seventh time in 28 road games this season.

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers won a game they were "supposed to win" Monday night, in the estimation of coach Doug Collins. But they lost a player they could ill afford to lose. Spencer Hawes had 21 points and a season-high 14 rebounds, as the Sixers sent the short-handed Orlando Magic to its 10th straight loss, 78-61, at the Wells Fargo Center. But the Sixers lost forward Thaddeus Young to a strained left hamstring in the second quarter. Young, the team's second-leading scorer and top rebounder, suffered the injury while diving for a loose ball near the Philadelphia bench.

Philadelphia 76ers forward Elton Brand will be sidelined for a month because of a dislocated shoulder. Team officials said Brand has a fracture and tear in his right shoulder, but will not need surgery. Brand was hurt Wednesday night in a win over Milwaukee. Its unfortunate that this happened, but were starting rehab right away and Im going to do everything I can to get back as soon as possible, Brand said in a statement released by the team Thursday.

When Gabe Lewullis returned to Central Catholic's Rockne Hall last month to be inducted into the school's Rockne Wall of Fame, he seemed uncomfortable sitting in the bleachers. That's because Lewullis, one of the outstanding basketball players in CCHS history, looked like he could have still put on the shorts and sneakers and scored about 25 points for Vikings that night against Parkland. "It's great to be back; this gym is still the best and everybody loves to play here," Lewullis said.

Dwayne Lee guards. That's how the basketball guys say it: He guards. Battles opponents for every square inch of hardwood. Makes every journey downcourt harder than a barefoot ballet on broken glass. There's a certain comfort in that, these same basketball guys will tell you, a certain reassurance in knowing a player will always dig in at that end of the court -- especially given how fickle offense can be, flitting away unexpectedly, evaporating when it is most needed. But if you guard, you always have a chance.

Saint Joseph's guard Jameer Nelson was slick with his handle, quick with his penetration. Trying to trap him seemed pointless. Fouling him did not work either because Nelson was smooth at the free throw line, too. Nelson was in command, and his poise was a big reason the Hawks did pretty much as they pleased in routing the University of Pennsylvania 66-48 in a Big 5 game Saturday night before a raucous sellout crowd of 8,722 at The Palestra....

By Tim Povtak, The Sports Xchange ORLANDO, Fla. — When opportunity knocked Sunday night, third-year forward Tobias Harris was more than happy to answer the door. With veteran starting guards Arron Afflalo and Jameer Nelson sidelined due to injuries, Harris attacked from multiple angles, scoring a career-high 31 points to lead the Orlando Magic to a 92-81 victory over the hapless Philadelphia 76ers. Philadelphia lost its 14th consecutive game. "I knew with guys out, we all had to do a little more, so my mindset was just to attack, play my heart out and whatever happens, happens," Harris said.

John Chaney has, in effect, thrown the book at himself, and it's all Saint Joseph's can do to turn the page. That's the idea this week, of course, as the Atlantic 10 Tournament unfolds in Cincinnati. The Hawks are seeking to write some new chapters, fashion a happy ending, become known as something other than the team victimized by Chaney's misguided sense of frontier justice. Because that's all there is now. Not the fact that Saint Joe's climbed off the deck after a 3-6 start to win their fifth straight A-10 regular-season crown.

Allen Iverson had a message for Orlando rookie guard Jameer Nelson. "I told him that every time he tried to gamble, tried to steal the ball instead of just staying solid on me, I was going to make him pay," the 76ers guard said Saturday night. Nelson kept gambling, and the Magic kept paying. Iverson torched Orlando for a spectacular career and NBA season-high 60 points, the fourth-highest scoring total in franchise history, to lead the Sixers to a 112-99 win over the Magic before the season's largest crowd -- 20,389 -- at the Wachovia Center.